U.S. Is Ready to Build Upstate Prison

OTISVILLE, N.Y., Feb. 28—Construction of the first Feder al prison in New York State, a 500 inmate facility for men in upstate Otisville, will begin in the fall if building funds of $21.7 million are appropriat ed by Congress.

President Ford, in his 1977 budget message, requested funds for the Otisville adult prison as well as for a Federal youth center in Talladega, Ala., and metropolitan correctional centers in Detroit and either Phoenix or Tucson, according to Robert Messmer, the chief of facility development for the United States Bureau of Pri sons.

The 944 residents of Otisville,a rural community in eastern Orange County, “seem to be 100 percent for the Federal prison,” according to the May or, Donald Wanser. At an envir onmental hearing last fall, “not a single resident voiced opposi tion,” he said. “I think it will be good for our area. We need the employment.”

The proposed prison has also been strongly supported by Rep resentative Benjamin A. Gil man, a Republican. The facility would employ 200 to 260 people, three quarters of whom would be hired locally, the Con gressman said, and it would “provide an economic boost to the community.”

But at a meeting three weeks ago between Mr. Messmer and members of the local Lions and Kiwanis Clubs, questions arose about the actual number of jobs that the prison might provide, according to Joseph O'Rourke, who attended the meeting as a representative of the National Moratorium on Prison Construction.

Mr. Messmer indicated that individual expertise and Civil Service seniority would be re spected in hiring the prison staff, and local residents would not necessarily be preferred, according to Mr. O'Rourke.

The only opposition to the prison expressed at the hearing was voiced by representatives of the National Moratorium on Prison Construction and the National Council on Crime and Delinquency.

The president of the council, Milton Rector, this week criti cized the Federal Government for “selling prisons” to res idents as employment opportu nities, while underemphasizing construction costs and the ex pense of incarcerating Federal prisoners.

The council, he noted, sup ports the dismantling of the United States Bureau of Prisons and the transfer of Federal prisoners into state systems, as well as limiting incarceration to the most violent offenders, and making use of probation and nonprison sanctions, such as restitution, for others.

The national moratorium, a Washington‐based organization financed by the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, opposes the building of new prisons, and supports alternatives to incarceration, such as halfway houses and probation, according to its spokesman, Brian Willson. His organization will attempt to block the appro priation of construction funds for Otisville, Mr. Willson said.

These funds were originally requested in 1976, Mr. Messmer said, but were not appropriated then by Congress. In 1975, the Bureau of Prisons received $1.5 million for site acquisition and planning, he said. The agency is in the process of purchasing 300 acres for the prison from the state, which owns 1,200 acres on the outskirts of Otisville. A drug rehabilitation center, which was housed in buildings adjacent to the prison acreage, is being phased out, and future use of the facility still uncertain.

None of the buildings that contained the drug center will be used for the Federal prison, according to Mr. Messmer. The institution will be newly designed and constructed, he said, and will consist of several housing units, each with a sepparate staff and program.

There will be no wall or guard towers around the prison, but two 12‐foot fences topped with barbed wire will surround the buildings and electrical detection devices will be located within the fences, he said.

The Otisville site was chosen because of its proximity to the New York metropolitan area, since most inmates will be New York City residents, Mr. Messmer said. Otisville is about an hour and a half drive from New York.

There are 40 major Federal prisons in the country, as well as several small camps and halfway houses, Mr. Messmer said. These facilities house 25,600 inmates, the majority of whom have been convicted of bank robbery, narcotics sale and importation. forgery and fraud, he said. About 7 percent are women.

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A version of this archives appears in print on February 29, 1976, on Page 41 of the New York edition with the headline: U.S. Is Ready to Build Upstate Prison. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe